A Reddit user brought to the playing field the news that AMD's upcoming ZEN CPU's have surfaced in a "pre-order" form through AMD Shangai's official Taobao channel (though you should nevertheless take these with a measure of salt). Details on which CPU we are actually looking at here are still scarce, unfortunately, but the chip is listed at ¥1999.00 (roughly $295). While the chip's process is listed at the expected 14 nm, the base CPU frequency reads 4.2 GHz.

Looking at the supposed AMD Ryzen launch line-up, though, no model is listed at these clockspeeds. However, we should recall that AMD's Ryzen chip used on CES 2017 (an engineering sample) carried clockspeeds of 3.6 GHz base and 3.9 GHz boost, so it is certainly conceivable that newer, release steppings have bumped the frequencies to 3.9 GHz/4.2 GHz respectively (4.2 GHz base clock seems a little too much from what we've seen from the chip, but then again, we don't have any indication as to whether this is an 8-core, 16-thread or a 4-core, 8-thread part, so that should also be taken into account on our "theorycrafting"). We should now have a more firm launch window for Ryzen chips though: previous rumors have pegged the launch at March 2nd, but a February 28th launch window should now be considered to be correct. Can we just have these on our hands already?

3.8/4.2 quad core with SMT was rumored at an AMD partner (I know a couple employees) a few weeks ago, but another rumor was that there was a top-end 4.0/4.4 GHz quad core special edition model... and yet someone else even claimed that 4.2/4.6GHz was being contemplated...

I gave none of these any credence at the time (lots of wishful thinking, methinks)... and I'm not so certain I can do so now... aside from the 3.8/4.2 model... which would still fit with this listing.

Raevenlord said:(4.2 GHz base cock seems a little too much from what we've seen from the chip, but then again, we don't have any indication as to whether this is an 8-core, 16-thread or a 4-core, 8-thread part, so that should also be taken into account on our "theorycrafting").

"(4.2 GHz base cock seems a little too much from what we've seen from the chip, but then again, we don't have any indication as to whether this is an 8-core, 16-thread or a 4-core, 8-thread part, so that should also be taken into account on our "theorycrafting")"

Gargantua said:"(4.2 GHz base cock seems a little too much from what we've seen from the chip, but then again, we don't have any indication as to whether this is an 8-core, 16-thread or a 4-core, 8-thread part, so that should also be taken into account on our "theorycrafting")"

4.2 GHz base whaat???

It starts at 4.2 and can boost up to 6-7 when you need the extra oomph ;)

I'm excited and I'm ready to buy Ryzen + AM4 mobo (no RAM, I'll just pull 2x16 GB DDR4 from my Intel rig), but I just heard that Ryzen CPU's allocation for SEA region will be the second lowest (the lowest will be India) until April 2017, sooo bye bye MSRP :shadedshu::shadedshu:

Right now Intel is scurrying to start producing dies without iGPUs in a desperate attempt to remain competitive.

Even with the crappy yields that AMD will have initially, they will still probably have cost parity with Intel, at least. By the end of April, when yields improve at GLOFO and Samsung, Intel will be at a cost disadvantage should they not dump millions into redesigning their wafers to produce dies without integrated graphics. Even then, their die size will be 10% bigger than Ryzen that will put them close to cost parity since AMD still has to pay a foundry markup.